


Someone Else Entirely

by Chicklet_Girl



Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-08
Updated: 2010-06-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 03:02:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chicklet_Girl/pseuds/Chicklet_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gibbs can’t lie to himself: He’s watching his daughter sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone Else Entirely

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from “Nine and a Half Months,” the final episode of _Coupling_ (UK), teleplay by Steven Moffat, in which a character holds his son for the first time: “So I shaded his eyes. And then... and then he looked at me. And oh my goodness me. I became someone else entirely.” Written for Session 4, Round 10 of NCIS Last Fic Writer Standing. The prompt was "Baby Boom: Your story has to have a baby in it. Does someone on the team have a baby? Do they find one somewhere? Someone else in the building? Write anything about babies!! Word count may not exceed 2500." I received one vote for Favorite and two honorable mentions (which don't carry points, just joy!) and advanced to Round 11 with a score of 2.

Gibbs can’t lie to himself: He’s watching his daughter sleep. Shannon is taking a nap in their bedroom and Gibbs is here in the nursery with the rocking chair pulled up next to the crib, watching Kelly through the bars. Shannon’s caught him at it a few times, and he’s caught her, and then they usually stand next to the crib and watch her together. He can’t help it. He’s drawn to Kelly, all the time, a compass needle pointing north.

His daughter – _daughter!_ – has downy brown hair, fingernails smaller than a BB, and cornflower-blue eyes Shannon thinks are going to turn brown. Gibbs had been hoping they would stay blue. That way there’d be something of him in Kelly, a connection that people could see, because he’s going to be away from her a lot. He knows how lucky he is to be home for this part, that half of his buddies were deployed or stationed in the middle of nowhere when their kids were born. Sometimes he feels like he has to memorize everything about her, save it up for the time when he’ll have to leave her and Shannon behind. The way her knuckles are just dimples on the backs of her hands. The tiny _Choo!_ sounds of her sneezes. How her neck smells. Her feet look like little boxes, the tops of her toes making a straight line, not a curve of different lengths.

Kelly stirs a bit, then kicks her legs a few times. Gibbs is standing before he realizes why: She’s about to wake up and cry, so he has to comfort her. He slips one hand under her neck and head, and the other under her butt, lifting her to his shoulder. She’s a lot lighter in his arms than she feels in his head. Kelly had been an abstraction for the last few months, and now that she’s here Gibbs can’t believe the change, how his whole life is for her. He’d updated his will and bought more life insurance, treated Shannon like a queen as much as he could, but he couldn’t really do anything for Kelly until he was holding her in the hospital, feeling like the Incredible Hulk holding a crystal vase. She had yawned, her mouth becoming a tiny little O, and something inside him had switched on. He would do anything for her, shield her, die for her without even thinking about it.

Gibbs holds Kelly against his shoulder with his left hand while he uses his right hand to spread a blanket on the changing table. He lays her on it and looks at her face as he swaddles her up tight, the way Shannon showed him. He can’t believe Kelly likes being wrapped up like an egg roll, but it calms her down right away. She subsides back into sleep, her eyes closing into two little lines. He keeps her in his arms and settles back into the rocking chair. She’s just so unbelievably small. He can hold her in the crook of one arm, she’s so tiny. He cradles her head in his hand and wonders why the hell a baby would have a “soft spot” there, how can that be good?

Gibbs sits back in the chair, watching her sleep again. Kelly squirms a bit within the blanket, screwing up her face into a grimace and letting out a breath. Gibbs rubs her belly through the blanket and whispers, “I’m here, kid, I’m here.” Always and forever.


End file.
